


Such Lovely Hair

by Lauchme



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Catharsis, Character Analysis, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Family Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Power Dynamics, The episode that wasn't
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2019-08-05 11:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauchme/pseuds/Lauchme
Summary: Touga hadn't always been this jaded, this cruel, this sociopathic and manipulative. But eventually the cycle can break.





	1. Rinse and Lather

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a several-chapter long journey into insights on Touga's behavior and inner world that wasn't really explored in the anime, but moreso existed in the movie. I want to examine his relationships, his motivation for dueling and working with Akio, his failures and his outer mask- and by the end, where he can go when he breaks the cycle of abuse he's trapped in.

The bright sunlight of a perfect and cloudless morning came unwelcome to the Kiryuu manor.

 

Touga sighed and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the new day. He was still dead tired, but he couldn’t let that show- he had an image to maintain. What’s-her-name had already left; he hoped there hadn’t been any incident between her and Nanami as she’d escaped. He stretched languidly as he got out of bed, glad he could at least get a couple of hours in between last night’s party and this morning’s student council meeting. 

 

The routine was boring but comfortable, a familiar ritual; shower (scrub thoroughly, remove the scent of last night and the memory- it’s useless now), choose a clean uniform, apply some moisturizer (some concealer for the shadows under his eyes; _those_ were most unpresidential and definitely not seductive) and lastly, combing his hair.

 

A hundred brushes, the way he’d learned as a child. He allowed himself to drift out of his body during the process, to float away to a distant and safe place. She’d commented on his hair last night, whoever she’d been. She’d played with him, pulled at it, and he hadn’t stopped her. It wasn’t like he was really all-there when he was going through the motions of keeping up his adult image, anyways.

 

As his reflection came back into focus in the mirror, he took a moment to admire himself; he’d earned it, hadn’t he? He fixed a serene and nonchalant smile onto his face, feeling confident that once again, that adult image he’d cultivated would get him to where he needed to go.

 

He really could care less about the minutiae of the meeting, but he wanted to take the opportunity to savour Saionji’s absence since his expulsion. His own handiwork, proof that he had control now, over others and over himself. He was the one using, now. His new-found thorns, carefully tucked under the blossom of his image as an upstanding young man, would protect him.

 

As he descended down the stairs, a beaming smile greeted him. “Good morning, Big Brother. I made you breakfast!”

 

Why’d she always try so hard? Touga was grateful for the consistent affection Nanami had shown him through _all those_ \- all these years. But he could never help but feel unnerved by her dedication, no matter how long it had been or how genuine it felt. He was always left wondering what she wanted from him. “Thank you, Nanami.”

 

He wasn’t really hungry, but he wanted to humour her. She wasn’t particularly good at cooking eggs.

 

“How was it?” She asked, leaning in and obviously seeking approval. Touga smiled- he was in control here, he reminded himself. As long as he kept her on a short leash, she couldn’t turn on him.

 

“It was alright. I’ll be going now.”

 

Just enough disapproval in that comment, enough abruptness, to keep her from getting too confident. In control. He left without waiting for a reply.

 

After all- the day was _his_ to seize. 


	2. Persistence of Memory

 

He stared at the horizon until his eyes watered, not wanting to blink for a second of darkness. He didn’t trust his mind when he fell into these brief… states. Moments of weakness.

 

He’d been how old…?

 

The memory felt heavy, distant like a raincloud shadowing a faraway coast, the downpour existing elsewhere but not in the blue skies of Here and Now.

 

It didn’t really matter- sometimes the details got jumbled up. Touga knew better than to trust his memories to be accurate. They’d become, over the years, smudged and tattered like improperly bound pages of a book far too weathered to read the cover of. Parts torn off.

 

_Why don’t you come with me to my study, Touga?_

 

What he’d hated- what he’d _always_ hated- was the false dichotomy of choices, as if ‘no’ had ever been an option. When the only two answers he could have given were passive silence or _yes, Sir._

 

He wondered if it had been more than some- some physical perversion, if it had been a psychological game. That man he called Father definitely had a sadistic streak, but he was never too sure of how deep it went beyond simple, worldly desire. 

 

Sitting alone along a buttress and watching over the empty dueling arena, Touga had felt too nauseous for dinner and had left Nanami abruptly on some excuse after she’d brought up a letter from the Kiryuu summer house in Provence. Was she really _that_ naïve, _that_ innocent of what had been going on across the wall from her bedroom, or was she messing with his mind too…?

 

It was best to assume she _was,_ Touga thought. He’d decided long ago it was best to assume the worst of intentions from others in their actions and words. That way he’d never again be betrayed, never again be told to grow his hair long simply because Mother thought he looked so charming that way, that they were going for a ride in the car just to pay some friends a visit.

 

Touga shivered involuntarily. At times like this, when he didn’t trust his body to sufficiently conceal the operations of his heart and mind with well-planned posturing, he ensured his solitude.

 

The sun had gone down already, and the backdrop on which the Castle that held Eternity lay was slowly growing to darker and darker shades of blue. It was time to head back- Touga never really was that fond of night. He preferred to spend it in as distracted of a way as possible, something filled with noise and bright lights and assurances of his power and primacy, yes. With someone he could pull the strings on.

 

There were a couple of candidates, he mused with a smile. Yui or Yuriko? Both had made it clear he was welcome to drop by their rooms for the night… and that they didn’t expect _more_ than that one night from a man as busy and enigmatically charming as him. Just the way he liked them.

 

_Well, Yui tonight and Yuriko tomorrow, I suppose. She’ll be glad to cancel any plans once I give her a call in the morning, if it means I drop by._

 

In the tension now easing from his ribcage from those comforting promises he arranged to himself, the visions on the back of his eyelids fading back into the churning river of oblivion where he sent his unwanted memories, Touga stretched his arms and got up to go, pausing for one last look over the arena. He’d have to get the Rose Bride again to truly banish any chance of being pulled back to the bottom of those waters, he knew. And he _would._

 

It was only a matter of time, of planning and preparation. Every move and every word deliberate until he found it- his eternity in the safety of absolute power. And once he entered that castle- he could lock up those parts of himself from the past so that they could never leave it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not my best work, but I'm sort of stuck in a limbo with this story, and sometimes the ideas just spill out into garbled messes that I take as I can get them. I can always clean it up once I've got the gist of the story going, right...?


	3. His Right Hand

Akio’s camera only captured your best side, he had assured him of that. Not that Touga felt there was a wrong side of him to photograph. Or that, if there was, that Akio would allow it to be seen in this room of perfect images.

 

“Things are going well at school?” The older man talked pleasantly and emptily between the sound of the camera shutter. As if he were some bored, half-attentive father across the dinner table, and not Touga’s direct connection to the surging power lines that were driving Ohtori forward to revolution. He had a taste for ironic humour like that- Touga appreciated it.

 

“Hmm. Juri’s getting restless, though.” Touga flipped sides without Akio needing to ask; he could practically read his mind, anyone’s- he knew exactly what they wanted from him and what he had to give to keep them where he needed them. 

 

Akio paused for a moment. “What do you mean by that?”

 

Touga perched himself upwards on his shoulders, though the satin duvet made it difficult not to slip back down again. “I’m not sure yet. But I don’t know if she’s as committed to this idea of disproving the Rose Bride’s miracles as she was before.”

 

“Interesting.” Akio strode across the room, his face remaining pensive and blank as he kneeled down to get a better angle for his next shot. “Perhaps she needs a reminder. Would you assist me with planning that, Touga?”

 

He nodded dutifully, turning his head towards the camera with a coy smile.

 

Akio smiled in return, deceitfully passive, flashes of light scattering on satin sheets. “Excellent. I appreciate your hard work, Mr. Kiryuu. All this will pay you marvellous dividends when we reach that final duel.”

 

So this is what it felt like to share the seat of power. Now that he had it, Touga didn’t want to give this up- not for anything, ever. And the flesh- well, it was only physical. He didn’t even need to stay inside of it while it was being used. His body was a vessel, a conduit for some otherworldly promise of an unstoppable cycle, one that would elevate him above the world he’d known and had been hurt within. If he posited himself like this- a token of deference- some spoils of war would be his to take, too. A slice of the revolution.

 

To sit aside the throne… or at the floor, at the master’s feet. Regardless of how it looked to the outsider, the queen and the whore really did have equal power over their king. Depending on the turn of his thoughts with the day, Touga alternated upon just which he was. What was important was that this was not Ohtori’s to see. His effortless, seemingly divinely-gifted power over the student body appeared as just that- his own crafting.

 

Who knew different? Saionji, maybe… Juri, it was hard to tell. Certainly not Nanami or Miki. This wasn’t something children could understand, after all.

 

That was the way Touga preferred it, too. When he looked too deeply into the mirror- thought he saw purple stains where his fingers had touched him, wanted for the briefest of moments to pull out those hairs he’d played with like a _doll,_ as if he were a doll-

 

No- he wouldn’t allow himself those thoughts. It wasn’t like that, no, not at all. He had _leverage_ with Akio, there was a deal between them, some kind of balance no matter how precarious, and he _wouldn’t_ fall down as prey again.

 

But there was only so much energy he had to assure himself of that, enough to last until perhaps midnight, by when he’d stare at the ceiling and wonder whether a bargain with the devil was ever really a matter of choice at all.

 

He hated Akio, but also admired him. Loved him, as well- wanted and needed his attention, his lens through which to project his chosen image over Ohtori, the self-assured and enigmatically powerful young man who kept his cards well hidden. And he needed Akio to keep assuring him that he _was_ that man, not the boy, not the frightened and cowering child in a cabbage field, still half-expecting those butterflies to transform into storybook fairies and carry him to safety…

 

The camera now sat on the chaise, abandoned, blind and purposeless without someone behind it to see, to determine what and how to record the memories it witnessed. Just a black box that would not recollect the past until you made it act so.

 

Touga didn’t see Akio. He didn’t need to. A smell of violets drifted from behind him, and he closed his eyes to the thoughts of who he might be at the final duel- the one whose name taunted him with its promise of change, of escape. It’d pay dividends, Akio had told him. Just carry your part of the bargain. Just keep the scales untipped; equilibrium, the price of power. A price he told himself, a thousand times, he’d keep telling himself- it was right of him to pay.

This was the price for his revolution.


	4. Little Sister

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even when it takes a while, I do get over writer's block... eventually.

Golden curls that danced in the light, that he knew were so elegantly braided and styled tonight for him alone. It was a pleasant thing to muse upon, Nanami’s dedication. But he could certainly see himself in her, that same blood. The desire to create an image and settle within, the well-orchestrated beauty to hide the ugliness inside.

 

“I just made a pot of your favourite blend, dear brother!”

 

She moved like a butterfly through the room, never settling in one place for too long. She never spent too much time on one person, either, as if flitting from flower to flower taking what nectar she could before moving on- except for himself, of course. He, the persistent sweetness in her life, the source of life and comfort that she couldn’t be without. And he hadn’t even had to work to put her in that position- she simply grew into it from childhood on. What a strange miracle.

 

“And these are the teacups we used to always use as children, remember?”

 

He remembered well. The bone porcelain wasn’t even chipped.

 

Setting two cups of tea before them, Nanami practically glowed with joy as Touga gestured for her to sit beside him on the sofa, curling up like an obedient puppy, or perhaps a kitten. He noticed that she was wearing that perfume he’d commented that he liked on her again, and it gave him some private amusement to know that a dozen other girls were likely doing the same, quite possibly causing a small revolt at the department store’s cosmetic section over that fragrance’s stock right now. That sort of thing _had_ happened before, after all, with the lipstick he’d complimented on that one other girl…

 

“I saw you talking to that awful Anthy girl again today— why’s that?” Nanami’s sugary tone couldn’t too well mask the poison dripping from her mouth as she spoke of the Rose Bride. “She’s such a bore, and a total weirdo, too… why would you waste your time on her?”

 

Touga laughed. “It’s more complex than that, Nanami. But you don’t have to worry— she’d never replace you, my dear little sister.”

 

A flash of something truly earnest and glad in her lovely eyes, something that reminded Touga of when she’d been far younger. So many things about her had changed since then, but a great deal more hadn’t. “You really mean that?”

 

“I do. You’re unlike those other girls, you know.”

 

Nanami purred happily and wrapped her arms around Touga’s neck. “Oh, I know! I just like to hear it from you now and then.”

 

 

Her display of affection barely touched Touga, really. He typically put on a sort of chrysalis-like shell when making contact with another human, feeling little to nothing, just as he wanted to. Also protecting whatever changes and transformations might occur inside from prying eyes; he knew that once butterflies finished gorging themselves on whatever leaf they preferred, they liquified in the chrysalis they build, completely reconfiguring themselves from something soft, tender, so vulnerable and weak— into beautiful, untouchable things that could come and go as they pleased. The caterpillar hid on the underside of the leaf, terrified of that bird approaching, sharp beak and beady eyes hungrily seeking it out in between the rows of the cabbage field. It wasn’t fast enough to get away, and even if it _could,_ it had nowhere to go. And it couldn’t hope to fight back. So it’d be devoured and destroyed, in between the rows of cabbage leaves.

 

But should it make it to form a chrysalis— hard and well-protected, yet its true purpose camouflaged from the predator— yes, if it survives that, it can reemerge from the broken-down elements of that pathetic little worm into something glorious, something that can fly away. A snow-white butterfly, those were the ones he always thought of. They were the loveliest for their lack of colour and pattern, the way they bore no detail of anything or anyone, something perfectly pure and untainted. And cruel as all beautiful creatures were, they’d leave their eggs abandoned on some other leaf of cabbage in some other field.

 

And where had he left Nanami, having let her follow him doggedly through Ohtori, to be pulled along through Ohtori’s hidden current rushing so fiercely beneath the placid surface? It was those sorts of surreptitious undertows that drowned naïve children, after all.

 

“Thank you for the tea,” he said with a suggestion of warmth, taking out a packet of artificial sweetener from his pocket and stirring it into the liquid, watching the crystals dissolve into oblivion.

 

Nanami turned her head curiously. “What’s that? We have sugar in the canister on the table.”

 

“This isn’t sugar, it’s aspartame.” Touga couldn’t help but be amused by that completely clueless expression on Nanami’s face— it was good to remember she wasn’t that cunning, after all. “It tastes like sugar. It’s sweet, but it has no substance. Just a sort of illusion to your tongue.”

 

“Oh.” Nanami looked abashed at her ignorance. “Why…?”

 

“Just watching my figure.”

 

Nanami seemed a little discontent now, as she mixed sugar into her own cup. “I see.”

 

They sat quietly and enjoyed their tea, in its two types of sweetness. The view of the garden from the sunroom was lovely, and Touga thought he saw something settle onto a flower just beneath the frame— sure enough, a paper-white butterfly, the sort he knew by heart. _Pieris rapae._

 

Before he could muse on its grace any longer, a sparrow snapped it up in its beak.


End file.
